BUSH TUCKER

Australia's Wild Food Harvest

by TIM LOW

Large used hardcover book with dustjacket. 238 pages, published 1989. Book and dustjacket are both in very good condition with inscription inside front cover, no other writing, marks, torn or loose pages.

Wild food foraging is certainly a fulfilling way to experience the Australian bush. By learning how to gather bush tucker, even in a token way, the forager comes to feel a special empathy for the bush, a sense that the forest is provident and friendly, that one is part of some whole. This surely is how Aborigines and other foragers saw their world. It may be something they can help us discover

InBush Tucker, Tim Low takes us on a fascnating journey through rainforests and deserts, along seashores and riverbanks, across paddocks and into our own backyards. As we ramble, he recounts the story of wild foods in Australia through the diaries of First Fleet Officers, explorers, pioneers and early naturalists. With a wealth of superb colour full-colour photographs he shows us the bush foods eaten by the Aborigines, convicts and early settlers and describes how they were used then and can be prepared today.

We discover the delights of wild teas and coffees, native herbs and spices, wild mushrooms and greens, native fruits and the nectar of flowers. We also learn that almost all Australian animals, birds, reptiles and insects are edible and that many introduced weeds can be used as vegetables.

As this book reminds us, we have largely lost the survival skills of our ancestors and, in so doing, have loosened our links with our natural heritage. By becoming familiar with the rich variety of wild foods throughout this country, we may be able to forge new bonds with its life-giving rivers and forests and find a way to live in harmony with our environment.

Tim Low ( born 1956) is an Australian author of books and articles on conservation and nature. For twenty years Low wrote a column in Nature Australia, Australia's leading nature magazine and now regularly contributes to Australian Geographic and Wingspan among other magazines.

Low became very interested in reptiles as a teenager and discovered several new species of lizard. He named the chain-backed dtella (Gehyra catenata) and had the dwarf litter-skink (Menetia timlowi) named after him. He works as a freelance environmental consultant, writer and photographer, serves on government committees, and does public speaking and conservation advocacy. He is the patron of Rainforest Rescue. He lives in Brisbane.